Evangelicalism and politics in Brazil from the perspective of Susan Buck-Morss’s theory of the aestheticization of politics

an essay on fascismo

Abstract

This article proposes to establish a dialogic mirroring between some selected aspects of Susan Buck-Morss's theory of the aestheticization of politics and the contemporary Brazilian panorama about evangelicalism and politics. It will specifically address the text by Buck-Morss entitled “Aesthetics and anesthetics”, however, due to the little space reserved here, it will focus on chapter XII of the referred text, where fascism is seen as an afterimage resulting from a process of manipulation of the masses. At the same time, some selected aspects of the theory of Protestantism of the Right Doctrine (PRD) by Rubem Alves will be approached, as it is accessible in his work entitled “Protestantism and Repression”. Such enterprise, therefore, foresees the possibility of identifying certain features produced by the process of political aestheticization, developed by European fascism in the 20th century, in the phenomenon of the involvement of evangelicalism in the politics of contemporary Brazil.